


And If Your Glass Heart Should Crack

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, the skywalker family tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 08:30:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14040261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: Sometimes, Leia feels as if she's spent her whole life grieving.





	And If Your Glass Heart Should Crack

**Author's Note:**

> Title from U2.

Leia feels Luke's death the moment it happens. It reverberates in her blood and in her bones. If Han's death broke her heart one last time, Luke's takes with it some shared pieces of her soul. She's never been religious, never done more than pay lip service to Alderaan's long-forgotten gods, never known the myths of Tatooine or Naboo to spare them any honor or worship, and she's spent most of her life avoiding knowing too much about the Force, too afraid of the paths it could lay before her. But she'd believed in love and in hope, in the bond between her and Luke and Han. She'd believed that as long as they were together, nothing could defeat them.

They haven't been together in a very long time, and this hard-won victory now feels even more like a defeat without her husband and brother beside her.

She doesn't cry. Sometimes she feels as if she's spent her whole life grieving and unable to cry about it, and this time is no different.

She reaches out one last time, feels Luke's purpose and peace suffuse the Force before his presence fades. She's always had purpose--sometimes it's all she has--but peace has eluded her almost entirely. She envies him that now, though she knows he's not really gone. Death is not the end, and he'll be with her in the Force the way Obi-Wan and Yoda were with him. (Vader appeared to her once and once only, shortly after Endor, and then left her alone as she'd demanded. She doesn't know if he continued to speak to Luke, and she isn't about to ask now. As much as she might like to, she can't spend her time screaming at ghosts or nothing will ever get done.)

She doesn't cry. She knows there are some who think she can't, that she's as cold and hard as durasteel, fueled only by righteous fury and a belief that she knows what's best for the galaxy, but though she feels privately, quietly, she feels deeply. Years of training as a princess, a politician, a rebel agent means that she's able to hold her own emotions at bay until there's time to process them, alone, which often looks to others like she doesn't have them at all. She'd tried hiding even from Han and Luke in the early days, but had never been able to keep them away for long. They'd always believed her to be stronger and better than she really was, believed her to be the princess, the general, the leader that people always needed.

The remnant of the Resistance, the seed of the newly reborn Rebellion, lies sprawled and sleeping around the _Falcon_ when she settles into the pilot's seat beside Chewie.

He gives her a sidewise glance and shoos away the little birdlike creatures that have nested in his fur. "Would you like to fly?" he asks, and she shakes her head. She likes flying, but it's never given her the same joy it did Luke and Han. She likes being in the co-pilot's seat, making smart remarks at their expense. Yet one more small piece of happiness that's been taken from her.

That thought hits her in the chest like a blaster bolt and she gasps at the impact. She ignores Chewie's concerned look, the chittering of his new bird friends, and Artoo's mournful chirp.

She doesn't cry. Not even in front of Chewie, who's the closest thing to family she has left. (She resolutely doesn't think of Ben, of how close he was and how conflicted he felt before the First Order blew her off the bridge of her own ship.) She's afraid if she starts, she'll never stop, and there's no time for that now. She has a rebellion to build. She can't afford to look back or look lost.

Leia swallows hard, sets her jaw, and blinks away her tears. She keeps her gaze forward, though all she can see is the deep, mesmerizing blue of hyperspace. She'll come up with a new plan, a new way to fight. She always does.

She'll cry when she's alone (as if she’s not always alone now, even surrounded by other people) and the First Order is vanquished.

She'll find peace when she's dead.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [And If Your Glass Heart Should Crack [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14051841) by [theleanansidhe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleanansidhe/pseuds/theleanansidhe)




End file.
